


Metal Sunflower

by sergeant_sunflower1224



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes - Freeform, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: The Winter Soldier Spoilers, Pre-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-13 22:01:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19259998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sergeant_sunflower1224/pseuds/sergeant_sunflower1224
Summary: Daliah Kine's whole life has been focused on The Winter Soldier. She has watched him, studied him, mended his wounds, and been there as his brains get scrambled.Training to be a scientist since she was young, Daliah has watched as her grandfather and father have shaped Hydra into the empire that it is and she has watched them create the world's finest weapon, The Winter Soldier. Her whole life's mission has been to improve the solider so that he can conquer the world as Hydra's Fist. He is her mission, as much as killing is his. She knows she will eventually grow up and inherit the throne as the Queen of Hydra but until then she needs to continue her work on the soldier while trying to hide that she feels deeply connected with him.With the secret wars being fought around her, Daliah digs deep into her history with the soldier and her family's history with the man he once was. Will she find that this man is truly and utterly evil? Or that he, too, has no choice in who is is forced to be?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the beginning of a new story I am working on. It has been in my head since they announced the Falcon and Winter Soldier TV show. Since Civil War, I have always been curious about Bucky's life as the soldier in Siberia but it doesn't look like we will be getting too much of that so I decided to take matters into my own hands. This story is my way of explaining what the soldier had to go through before he got to where he is know.

The first time I saw the soldier was in my father’s files. I was 4 years old and I had snuck around the compounds in search of my parents. It was a small picture of him, frozen in the cryopod. His hair was slightly shorter than I know it to be now and his face was at peace during his slumber. The stamp on the picture read “1953”. My father was in his study, reviewing the files when I walked in and snuck a peak before he quickly shut the file and put it in his locked desk drawer before he began tickling me and chasing me around the room until I forgot all about what I had seen.

The next time I saw the soldier I was 6 but he had always appeared to me in my dreams, although I could not really place his face. My father was showing me around the lab when a horn sounded. A door opened and there were guards coming in and he was in the middle of them. He looked like a giant with his huge frame and I cowered behind my father as the soldier went and sat on the doctors table in front of us. My father told me to sit down while he talked to the guards and I drew a sunflower as I watched the doctors examine the soldier and bandage his wounds. When my father was done with his briefing, he picked me up and carried me away from the lab as the soldier finally glanced up and caught my intense stare.

After that day, I saw the solider frequently but only in passing. As I would leave classes for the day, I would catch glimpses of him walking to or from a mission and I could always tell which by the amount of blood on his clothes. When I visited the doctors in the lab, I would watch as he got repaired and mended. He became a figure I knew all too well, and yet knew nothing about. I would watch him for hours while he sat in the observation room or worked out in the training facility with my father and the guards. I was always kept as far from him as the room would permit and if there was a wall or glass window to stand behind, I stood. But that never stopped me from watching him.

I was 16 the first time I ever heard him speak. I was studying with the head scientist at the time, Doctor Liekin learning what I could about the soldier’s mechanisms and repair needs when an alarm sounded. The doors opened and the guards rushed in carrying the soldier as he lay limp in their arms. There was blood trailing as they walked and the solider was immediately placed on the table as the guards screamed for the scientist and the doctors to begin an emergency operation to remove a bullet lodged in his abdomen. I stepped back, fully intending to leave the room when Dr. Liekin called for me to prep the solider for the operation. “I am not ready,” I shouted at them still stepping backwards towards the exit. 

“Hands on learning is the best kind! Now remove his shirt, he is bleeding!” The Dr. was already around the other side of the table prepping the instruments before I had time to oppose. I scurried back towards the table, grabbed the scissors from the tray, and cut down the middle of the soldier’s white tank top to reveal a bullet hole, spilling out blood. As I moved to put the scissors down, a hand grabbed mine. A cold, metal hand that clenched so tightly around me, I thought my wrist would break. 

“сунфловер!” It was a pained grunt, more than anything and at first, I hadn’t caught it. The minute it was said, the soldier’s eyes rolled back as he began seizing and I was frozen. There was screaming all around me and the next thing I knew, I was being picked up and placed outside of the door by one of the bulky guards. As I peered through the glass pane in the door, I racked my mind for what that word meant. And then it hit me.

Sunflower. It means “sunflower.”


	2. Chapter 2

It was another few days before I saw the solider again, I was given an update by Dr. Liekin that he had pulled through the surgery and was currently resting in his chambers. He would need to be wiped and put to sleep again for another few years to make sure he was back in his best shape, but I would be on the team to monitor his vitals until he awoke at that time. When I asked if I could see him, she told me that I would be allowed in to perform a routine follow up with her later that day but that that would be the last time I was to have actual contact with the solider until the end of his next cryo cycle. 

As we walked into the soldier’s chambers, I was stunned. They were decorated. There were photographs of places all around the world and drawings that looked like they were done by a second grader. I was drawn out of my amazement by the Dr. who instructed me to get along with my intended plan. It was in that very moment that I realized I would be speaking to the solider for the very first time. 

“Soldier, we are here to preform your medical follow up,” Dr. Liekin said from behind me. “Are you up for that?” All she received was a small nod from the soldier as he sat up in bed and held out his arm and hand for his vitals to be checked. I walked towards him, hesitantly with my blood pressure cuff in one hand and heart monitor in the other. 

“Solider, my name is Daliah, I will be assisting Dr. Liekin today. I am just going to check your blood pressure and heart rate, okay?” Whatever I thought my voice sounded like, I am sure that it sounded nothing like that. Trying to be confident while being incredibly nervous probably leaves you with a whisper-shout, but he heard me. His head snapped up, as his eyes met mine. 

“Okay,” he said. A response typical of that question but not typical for the solider. The Dr. seemed surprised and wrote a small note in her pad but let me continue on with the procedure. As I placed the heart monitor on his index finger and the blood pressure cuff around his bicep and began to take the reading, I took a quick glance around the room at all the different drawing and pictures. It was then that I realized all of these drawings were done by a child. Me. These were all of the drawings that I had done while observing the solider all of these years. Drawings that I had forgotten and when I went to go back to get them, they were gone, and I assumed thrown away. But here they were. Here they all were. My breath was caught in my throat and it would have stayed that was if Dr. Liekin hadn’t coughed to draw back my attention. As I look at the reading of the blood pressure and heart rate, I am aware that these numbers are much too high for a genetically engineered man who, up until this moment had been staring at a ceiling in silence. I give the Dr. a confused glance but all she does is jot something down in her notepad and request that I take the cuff off. When I look back to the solider, I am surprised to find him still looking at me. Staring at me. It was then that I began to realize where I was. I was currently holding the arm of a man who had killed thousands. I dropped his arm quickly and his eye contact dropped with it. 

"Thank you, solider. That will be all,” my voice was definitely shaky now and I start to move backwards towards the Dr. and the exit. All he does is nod at me again before resuming his previous position of laying down and staring at the ceiling. As I take a step out the door, I glance from the resting solider to the ceiling he is staring at and I feel my breath catch in my throat. On the ceiling, for the solider to stare at is the drawing of the sunflower I drew all of those years ago and suddenly I am falling.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello friends! Thank you so much for your kind words on the story so far! I wanted to throw in a little note that I realized I forgot to mention at the start of the story: Any of the dialogue, unless otherwise stated, is meant to be Russian, as this story takes place in Siberia at the compound we see in Civil War. What I mean by this, is that anytime someone speaks, though it is written in English, it is assumed that the characters are speaking Russian. In this chapter we hear a word in German, as Daliah is 100% German and born in Siberia. Just wanted to make that clear, in case anyone had any questions!

What makes people evil? Is it genetic, something learned, something observed, something unstoppable, something preventable? Is it written into our brains or etched into our souls? When we are born, does someone or something mark us with the symbols of good and evil and that is our predetermined fate? Is evil even definable and quantifiable or is it just the word we use to describe something or someone who has done something just a little too wrong? And I guess the same argument can be had for good? We hold that word to such a high standard but where did it come from? The words good and evil mean nothing to most creatures on this planet and yet to us, it can start and end wars. Why?  
***  
Suddenly I am walking around the compound alone. I am washed over with this unbelievable sense of fear. The silhouette of the solider is in front of me and I can barely make out the glint of the metal arm. “This is a bad man,” a voice that sounds like my own tells me. “An evil man.” And yet I kept walking towards him. I needed to get to him. It was like there was an invisible string that was forcing me towards him, and I was powerless to stop it. I had really only seen him through thick walls but as I stand in front of him, I know without any doubt in my mind, that he is supposed to be evil incarnate. He has done terrible, awful things. “We have made him do these terrible things,” my voice rings clear through my head. “But we are not evil!” I yell into the empty air. “We are looking out for people.” He is the evil one. He is the one that needed to be controlled and trained like a wild dog. It doesn’t matter what we made him do, he was born and bred evil and we are only using that evil to make the world a better place. It is what I have been told since I was old enough to begin comprehending the concepts of right and wrong. “He’s an evil man. That is why we must hurt him,” it was a familiar voice and, yet I could not place it. Screaming. There is loud screaming in my ears as I begin sprinting towards the solider. I am terrified. “Of him,” I hear the voice again. “You are scared of him!” I let out a guttural scream of defiance back at the voice. I realize that I am not scared of him. I am scared for him. He is being hurt and I need to save him. I am running as fast as I can and yet I am not getting any closer to him. I watch him fall to his knees, his hands pressing against his head as he lets out a desperate cry. And then…silence.

I wake up sweaty. I try to scan my surroundings, but my vision is blurry as I look around. Placing my hands beside me to push myself up, I realize that my hands are cold. Metal. I am laying on metal. As my brain finally starts to shake the haze off, I realize that I am laying in the observation room on a metal doctor’s table. As I continue looking around the room, my eyes fall on Dr. Liekin who is watching me closely, that same notepad in her hands. It takes her a second to say anything but when she does it seems louder than normal. 

“How are you feeling, Daliah?” As she says this, she closes her notepad, drops it onto the table and walks towards me. 

“Fine. I-uhm- I feel fine… Dizzy. What happened?” I move my legs around to the front of the table and place my hand on my forehead to stop the throbbing.

“You fainted,” It sounded so matter of fact that for a moment I thought she was going to give no further explanation but she continued on, “You cut the soldier’s check up short and as we went to leave, you whispered something and then fell to the floor. The soldier carried you here so I could make sure you didn’t have anything majorly wrong with you,” she finished.  
That’s when it all came rushing back to me. The solider, the check-up, the drawings, the sunflower. I go to stand up and stagger backwards against the table. The doctor rushes forward to steady me. 

“Do you remember what I said? Before I passed out?” I was trying to piece everything together to try to understand why I had this pit in my stomach. 

“Yeah, um, it was something in German, I think. Sonnenblume. What does that mean? Sunflower, right?” She is looking at me expectantly, but I couldn’t answer. There are too many thoughts swimming around in my head and I don’t know what to make of anything. 

“Why?” It’s the only thing I can manage to get out. 

“Why what, Daliah?” Dr. Liekin is looking at me quizzically, and I am trying to register what the exact look on her face is and why it is making me feel so uneasy. 

“Why does he have those pictures? My pictures. In his room. He has my pictures,” my words come out fragmented and I am nearly certain that my words are slurred from all the jumble in my brain, but I manage to make out at least one coherent thought.

It’s a moment before the doctor answers my question and I take that moment to take a few deep breaths and try to ground myself to cement below me. “Daliah, there is a lot you don’t know about the soldier. About our work here. And there is a lot I wish I could tell you, but I can’t just yet. But those pictures, they do a lot for our work here. They help both us and the soldier and I wish I could tell you how or why, but I can’t.” 

I am immediately dizzy again. What does any of that mean? What work? Why can’t I know about these secret works? I want to ask so many questions but before I can, a loud alarm sounds. I know that alarm. That’s a mission alarm and that means-

I am cut off by a group of guards throwing the door to the lab open and the solider follows closely behind them. Before I know what’s happening the solider is five feet away from me, throwing on his gear hastily. Jacket, vest, mask, goggles. Dr. Liekin was in front of him, quickly checking him for any signs of weakness, to which there were none, before giving the go-ahead order. I make eye contact with the soldier before he turns his back to me and he gives me a curt nod before he is stomping out the door, the guards following behind him as he heads towards the armory. The door closes after them and they are gone as quickly as they came. I try desperately to catch my breath, but I feel my throat closing more and more with every passing second. My hands are out in front of me, grasping for anything that might save me from this panic. 

Dr. Liekin is the first thing I find to grab ahold of, and she eases me back towards the table where I take a seat. I try desperately to push words out and ask some of the questions that are burning a hole in my throat, but they get strangled by the panic. The doctor is watching me closely, and I see her glance at the notebook she put down on the table earlier as if she is dying to write something down. She notices the confusion and anxiety in my eyes and begins to speak in a quieter voice.

“Daliah, breathe. I know how all of this must sound and I promise that you will get answers to so many of your questions as the time goes on but for now, please just take some deep breaths and relax,” her hand is placed firmly between my shoulder blades as she talks and I know she is looking at me with a strong face but I can’t bring myself to care about a word that is coming out of her mouth.

If I am gathering anything about what she just told me, it is that I am basically in the dark about so many things. I mean, how am I ever supposed to trust her again if she is doing all of these secret projects and things. I force myself to stop there and not think about who else might be involved in these secret projects or what these projects might be. I stand up quickly and begin walking towards the door before I can register just how fast my head is spinning. As I speed walk my way through the exit, I turn my head quickly to see Dr. Liekin reaching for her notebook to begin writing something into it.


End file.
